1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to network transaction systems, and more specifically, to a network transaction system applicable to the entire range of cyberspace banking services including new account application, account balance summary, transaction summary, fund transfer, and bill payment. The present invention further relates to a network transaction system applicable to other industries having a closed network for mutual communications, such as credit card services.
2. Description of the Related Art
Home banking systems have been developed as new strategic services in the finance industry, which will allow a customer to electronically access to their individual bank accounts by connecting his/her home terminal to a central computer of the bank. Customers can enjoy various online banking services such as transaction summary review and fund transfer. To receive those services from the present home banking systems, each customer must have his/her bank account opened beforehand through a traditional, or non-electronic, procedure. That is, a customer should visit the bank and sign up for opening a bank account, where he/she will be usually requested to show something to identify that he/she is really who he/she claims to be. This security process is called a user authentication procedure, and the customer has to pass through this gateway every time he/she newly applies for an account of a different bank.
Some financial institutions are proposing such online banking systems that will provide more advanced services using open network environment such as Internet. Those proposed systems allow their customers to sign up for opening a bank account without visiting the bank. Instead, customers can use a virtual branch of the bank disposed on their personal computer platforms that are linked to some bank systems providing online services. Such banking systems are called cyberspace banking.
Since every service is provided online in such cyberspace banking systems, the user authentication plays an indispensable roll in security management. How to perform the online user authentication is, therefore, of greater importance in recent years.
The use of certifying authorities is proposed as a solution to the above problem. According to this idea, a certifying authority established on a network will issue an electronic certificate that vouches for the bearer's identity. To get an electronic certificate, users must register their personal data to the authority by sending a mail message or visiting its registration office. This requirement, however, is quite troublesome to the users. When compared with conventional methods, the proposed authentication method has no big difference in the initial expense in time and effort for the customers to get a certificate.
Also, from the viewpoint of the banks offering home banking services, the presence of certifying authorities will cause an additional burden on them. They might ask the following questions: “Who will take the initiative in operating the certifying authority?” “Does each bank separately establish such a certifying body?” “Or will it be a unified body to be shared by all the financial institutions involved?” Unfortunately, there seems to be no clear answers to those questions. In reality, however, every cyberspace banking system that is experimentally running now assumes the use of certifying authorities and electronic certificates issued from them for user authentication.
A virtual branch is defined as a terminal platform which is virtually set up on each user's personal computer. When this concept is realized, the users will be able to enjoy a wider range of banking services and business transactions than those offered from the present home banking systems.
To make this cyberspace banking commercially operational, it is necessary to solve the troublesomeness imposed to the users in getting an electronic certificate and to eliminate the tasks related to certifying authorities that the banks must deal with. Unless users can easily open an account in their desired banks, the new systems will never be accepted by them.